Steve Green said at July 29th, 2009 at 6:48pm

“A FM or DAB radio (I personally don’t care which), with an IP connection for additional personalised content, brings the best of both worlds to a listener – a reliable and free over-the-air, mobile, mass-market audio source, and a personalised connection to that station as well.”

How can FM or DAB for live radio + IP for on-demand / personalised content “bring the best of both worlds to a listener”?

Here’s what I consider to be the fundamental requirements that a modern-day digital radio system must deliver in order for it to be fit for purposee:

* Lots of choice
* On-demand content
* High audio quality
* Personalisation
* Interactivity
* Images / video / text alongside audio

Your suggestion of using FM or DAB for live radio and the Internet for on-demand / personalised content fails to deliver lots of choice, and it fails to deliver high audio quality (it will once FM has been switched off, anyway). So I’d say that your solution actually offers the best of one world (the Internet) but the worst of the other world (broadcast using DAB or FM).

There is absolutely no reason why people shouldn’t use the Internet for listening to live radio when they’re at home. 60% of radio listening takes place at home, and around 70% of households have broadband, so 0.6 * 70% = 42% of all radio listening could take place at home via the Internet without DAB or FM being used.

Paul said at July 29th, 2009 at 11:04pm

I have to say James, that I’m not sure what a hybrid device like the one you describe would add that an internet-only device wouldn’t provide anyway – perhaps additional content on a mobile where audio streaming isn’t available but peripheral content is ok? That seems a little tenuous to me but I suppose it’s a possibility.

However, I do think there’s mileage in the idea that not all the content has to come via the same platform (or even from the same source) provided we also accept that it does not arrive ‘live’, ie linearly or in sequence.

What do I mean? Well, essentially, take the playout system out of the studio and build it into the receiver. Send the listener discrete pieces of content via a number of different channels at different times and let them customise, on the receiver, which bits they get to hear (and see) in what kind of order.

Examples -
- When the user is at home the hybrid device connects to their wi-fi and downloads your station playlist as discrete files. This can include images and background info on the artists. It can also include station idents, logos, promos and ads.
- When the user is out and about the hybrid device downloads near-live presenter links, news, sport, weather and travel, all of which they can choose to include in their customised stream or not. Of course, it won’t be truly ‘live’ radio. But let’s be honest, how much radio actually is these days?
- This is great for localisation and specialisation of content; if you take the train to work in SE London why do you want to hear information about traffic jams in Doncaster?
- Also great for sports content – add goal updates to your stream, or test match updates, or whatever *you* like. Get your device screen to show the latest scores *you’re* interested in. Live. With instant updates.
- You could potentially combine content from different stations, or with their own music, or with random podcasts. You want Christian O’Connell with the music from Absolute Classic Rock? Or 1Xtra? It’s easy (though a commercial and legal minefield for the latter).
- You could potentially ‘ban’ content they don’t like, skip tracks, love tracks for more frequent rotation etc, because the station playlist is all stored on your device. Hate that annoying phone-in feature at 8.15? Ban it and get one of your favourite tracks instead.

In this way, different types/speeds of data connection can be used seamlessly and efficiently whilst the user gets the customisation they’re gagging for. The broadcast element is used for the relatively low bandwidth time-sensitive content. The larger, less time-crucial content can be sent whenever the user can get a wi-fi connection.

Best of all, this radio has a totally robust stream, it’ll work on the Northern line, on a plane, even on a scuba dive – because the bulk of the content is already on the device – and when it gets a signal again it will still download up-to-the minute content and mix it in.

Ben said at July 30th, 2009 at 8:27am

I dont usually do this, but in response to Steve Green’s assertion:

“There is absolutely no reason why people shouldn’t use the Internet for listening to live radio when they’re at home. ”

Heres one reason – it invariably doesn’t work.

I’m no techfool, but wireless is a bit of a pain in the bum to get to work reliably, and thats only going to get worse the more and more people are contended in the same bandwidth. Dont get me wrong – I like wireless for intermittent connectivity (e.g. web pages) but for a reliable stream? no dice.

Also, I quite enjoy taking my little radio (FM or DAB, I dont care which either) to my Greenhouse while I talk to the plants, not worrying about whether my wireless connection will reach that far.

Claire said at July 30th, 2009 at 10:47am

Why not suggest an afternoon beer session one day for people to think about and talk about radio and where it’s headed. It really is as a crossroads. Evene if all you get is bunches of PR people, it would stir debate.

Maybe it’s the content and engagement rather than the delivery that needs addressing? (and maybe even accessibility?)

A lot of radio is consumed on cr*ppy old car radios so it’s not necessarily a quality issue? (Not suggesting it doesn’t matter, but it’s obviously not a big consideration beyond a certain point)

I’ve been watching my own consumption of radio and my children’s and there’s potentially a generation coming up for whom radio is largely irrelevant….?

I proactively looked this morning for radio that would engage my kids, aged 7 and 9 (ironically via our TV) – what matters to them is content – music (but they get this from friends, downloads, CDs etc – radio is a potential ‘introducer’, very little more – but putting it on mobiles would work for them), humour (they love radio ads) relevant content (all I could find specifically for them was a kids fun channel that sounded like a kids disco and CBBC on radio – yeuch!)

And if the average age of Radio one listeners is over 30, it’s not delivering to a youth agenda… (or maybe the wrinklies are refusing to accept that age matters!?)

Just a thought?

(Oh – and I was in Kent last week and couldn’t get any UK radio at all on our car radio, so I do wonder if radio is as ubiquitous as we spoilt suburbaners suppose?)

dumbledad said at July 30th, 2009 at 1:37pm

Ah ha, this time I agree completely. I may have tunnel vision but my ideal radio would be Olinda + Evoke Flo + Spotify in a bakerlite box that I could move around. Two things to add though. Firstly, like the previous two replies I don’t get a feel for your concept of ‘audience’. Sure the word “interactivity” may subsume the social stuff but I think it’s worth pulling out as a strand of thought seperately from personalisation. Socondly, and this may be because it’s become implicit for you through RadioDNS, but APIs are important. They may not be important when things settle down but right now, when we are all busy inventing the future then the richer and clearer the APIs you provide onto your technology then the more diverse and well founded will be your friends’ suggestions.

Steve Green said at July 30th, 2009 at 6:55pm

@Ben,

I’d suggest that Wi-Fi works perfectly well for the vast majority of people who’ve got it. And in my experience Internet radio streaming via broadband/Wi-Fi is very reliable, and it’s undoubtedly far more reliable than DAB for a large percentage of the population.

And I disagree that things will get worse as more people have to contend to use the same Wi-Fi bandwidth, because the 802.11n Wi-Fi standard, which we’ll all eventually migrate to, uses MIMO antenna array technologies, which help to reject interference from neighbouring wireless networks and they user lower signal levels as well because the signals are “steered” towards the receiver, so they produce less interference to neighbouring networks. 802.11n also provides greater range than 802.11b/g, again due to the use of MIMO, so you shouldn’t have a problem receiving streams in your garden either.